


Into Her Dreams (Vampire Edit)

by escritoireazul



Category: Hollows - Kim Harrison
Genre: Bisexual Character, Community: femslash07, F/F, Vampires, Witches, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivy dreams in black, white, and red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into Her Dreams (Vampire Edit)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deifire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deifire/gifts).



> Recipient: deifire for femslash07  
> Spoilers: Dead Witch Walking and The Good, The Bad, and The Undead

Five dreams Ivy Tamwood never realized.

I. (pre-series)  
II. (during _Dead Witch Walking_)  
III. (post _Dead Witch Walking_)  
IV. (during _The Good, The Bad, and The Undead_)  
V. (post _The Good, The Bad, and The Undead_)

I.

There’s a witch in her bed.

That plus the handcuffs and the foggy remnants of a sleep spell sounds like a recipe for bad luck. (A witch in the bed is bad luck. Handle with care. Use plenty of bleach. Bleach would ruin her sheets.)

Ivy doesn’t believe in bad luck.

There are curses and wishes and (so many, she makes them so often, she’s such a failure because of her) mistakes, but there’s no such thing as bad luck and there’s no such thing as coincidence.

Rachel doesn’t say anything, the witch in the bed, she just sits there in leather and waits. Watches. Ivy can feel her, the heat from her body, can _smell_ her, the last of her adrenaline, the sweat collecting under her breasts and in the creases of her thighs, the constant scent of magic, burnt amber and wet grass.

“Rachel…,” Ivy whispers the name, a plea, a promise. “Let me go.” That’s a demand.

They’ve only been partners for a few – has it been days? has it been weeks? maybe it’s been forever, it was always like this, Ivy can’t make herself remember – they’ve only been partners for awhile, but one thing has already become standard. Rachel doesn’t listen to demands, not Ivy’s, not anyone’s. She says how it will be, and she gets mad if you break her rules, but not if she breaks yours, or anyone else’s.

She leans over, and her hair brushes against Ivy’s face, red so bright, blood on fire. Charms dangle from her neck, clack together, form music and Ivy can almost hear the spells, all gone wrong, twisted backward.

Rachel’s breath is hot and spiced with blood just under the skin of her tongue, her gums, the insides of her cheeks. She’s so close Ivy could touch, if her hands were free, but all she can do is lift her head, strain forward and up.

(_Touch me_ she whispers in her thoughts, but her mouth won’t move and the metal in the handcuffs cups her wrists, presses against her back. _Kiss me_.)

Rachel says something Ivy can’t hear (impossible, but she’s a witch, a witch, a witch with an itch in bed, does impossible, improbable things) and leans in and

kisses

her.

(Ivy, when she wakes, can taste witch on her tongue.)

II.

Rachel is melted sugar, sticky, sweet, wrapped in a black wrapper which smells like witch and like Ivy, mingled together, a breathtaking, mindstealing mix of sweat and pheromones and the promise

the silk-sweet promise of

(she can feel it on her teeth, the way the skin splits, parts, opens a rent, and her mouth, her throat, will work to take in the)

blood.

Rachel hesitates, her breath too fast, and sweat trickles down her neck. Her fingers twitch, and then she reaches out, just like she wants, just like Ivy wants, and puts her hands in Ivy’s hair, twists it around her fists, clings and tugs and pulls Ivy closer.

Ivy touches her then, cheek to cheek, her hands at Rachel’s stomach, her fingers inside the robe, under the nightgown. Rachel’s skin is warm, hot against her fingertips (burn the witch, fire to flesh, burn the witch) and her breath is like steam against Ivy’s throat.

She makes noises, soft cries without actual words, as Ivy runs her hands up Rachel’s ribs until she can cup her breasts, cover them with her hands. They’re so little, so delicate, practically prepubescent, but the nipples harden when Ivy touches them, thumbs across them, scrapes her nails to make Rachel shudder.

“Please.” Rachel’s sounds coalesce into just one word, exactly what Ivy wants to hear. She sighs and moans and, when she speaks, her hands clench in Ivy’s hair. “Please.”

Ivy bites, swift and smooth, and the saliva pumps into Rachel, and her cry of pain is cut off, then muted, then transmuted into pleasure, such delicious, delectable pleasure.

And Ivy

tastes

Rachel

tastes like wood, things growing from the dirt, living things green and lush and crunchy sweet.

When she cries out, she calls Ivy’s name, and comes so hard she shakes the chair, topples them backward, and Ivy is careful not to rip, not to tear, not to hurt. Rachel’s fingers are still in her hair, and Ivy strokes her cheeks, kisses her mouth, breathes in all she can.

(Ivy wakes, curled in on herself, her fingers in her mouth, and she can taste dirt.)

III.

That man

(he smells of rat, still, and she can almost taste fur on her tongue)

is touching Rachel. That man has cupped his arms around her, his hands beneath her clothes, his mouth on her face and her lips and her throat. That man smells of Rachel, of her sweat and her saliva and her lust.

(She smells, when she wants, when she needs, when the sex rises up in her, like new pennies and fresh wood tossed into the fire.)

Ivy saunters into the living room, drapes herself across a chair, head on one arm, legs hooked over the other, her body stretched between, long and lithe, encased in black leather and lycra and, under it all, lace taut across pale skin.

Rachel looks at her, steals quick glances, her face creased with worry, but that man ignores her, rests his chin on Rachel’s shoulder even when she sits up, cups her arms and pulls her closer when she tries to draw away.

_Let her go._

Ivy doesn’t say it, but the words buzz on her lips, fall from her fingertips, drift out of every pore until the room is filled with the odor of her order, floating just beneath the surface of the mind, just past understanding.

The television is on, bright lights and flashy colors and distant crowds cheering, but it’s covered by the sound of Rachel’s heartbeat and the way it picks up whenever Ivy comes near.

She wants it

(Ivy, she wants Ivy, and Ivy is not an it, a thing, a monster. Ivy is just --

trapped

\-- she is Rachel’s friend. Partner. Protector. She likes her roles and the way their lives entwine so well.)

wants Ivy close to her, in her, fingers and fangs.

(_Don’t think about your failures, dear._ Ivy can hear her mother’s voice inside her thoughts and shakes her head to knock it free. She’s not a failure

even though she fails

she’s really not. Not with Rachel.)

“Ivy,” Rachel says, and reaches for her. That man-rat holds her back, pushes down her arms, and Ivy vaults across the room, slick motion, slips between them, bones broken in her passing

(his)

and into Rachel’s hands, her touch, her frizzy halo of hair, a fire-angel who will purge Ivy clean.

She’s wearing leather, too, a skirt, and it’s so easy to reach up, high, past pale, pristine thighs, not marred by any mark

(magic)

and slide her fingers through short hair, soft, red, and inside, warm and slick and Ivy’s knuckle brushes flesh and Rachel bucks and is hotter, an inferno cradled beneath skin and Ivy’s caught

(magic)

and Rachel’s pulse is in her throat so fast, a little sparrow, a pixy on honey.

(Rachel tastes like honey, dirty honey, fresh from the hive

and

magic

and she coats Ivy in her golden glow.)

The rat is gone and Rachel tips back her head, opens her throat, and whispers Ivy’s name, a liturgy of desire, a prayer

(no, Ivy is the one who prays, cups her cross her in her hands and whispers pleas for freedom)

a spell. She cries out when Ivy kisses her, cries out into her mouth, and then, bucks, moves, twists, witch flesh so hot against her she will burn the vampire out of Ivy’s body, out of her cells, flame around her, flashfire

and make her clean.

(Ivy wakes with her fingers between her legs, sticky, and craves oranges and honey.)

IV.

She’s dead.

(_You failure! _She can hear her mother shriek. _You killed my bloodline!_)

Ivy is dead and she is not a mother and she can feel him

moving inside her

his blood so fast it rips and tears her open and she, her living blood, is sluggish, broken, dripping from her fingers and her tongue and the very edges of herself.

Ivy Tamwood is no longer the last living member of her family, the Tamwoods have no more living vampire bloodline, Ivy is a failure.

(She doesn’t say, _I didn’t want this. I didn’t. I didn’t._

I did.

Instead she says “I told him no” and “I couldn’t stop” and “why”.)

Rachel holds her, guides her, and Ivy follows, meek as a lamb. She is dead, she is dead, she has nothing else to do but wait to wake unliving, undead, she can listen and follow directions, she can, she’s a good girl, she is.

(_Why?_

Her mother’s voice is back and it’s loud and heavy and –

Piscary

\-- it’s not her mother, it is, it’s not, it is.

_Why? Because you failed_

my little girl, my sweet weak child

you failed but you shall

live

forever.)

“Am I dead?”

Rachel says nothing, just strokes her hair, and Ivy chokes on the memory of blood.

(Ivy is dead. Ivy is broken. Ivy is a breaker. Ivy has broken all she touches, all she will touch, everything, always. I am not Ivy, she thinks, I’m a good girl.

Ivy is a failure.)

There is an orange somewhere, peeled, the skin drawn back to reveal blood orange insides, flesh, pulp, bits and pieces

(broken)

she can smell it.

“I didn’t want this,” she says, and, “Am I dead?”

Rachel gives no answer, only holds her, and strokes her hair, and leans in, close, until the oranges line Ivy’s lips and slide over her tongue.

(It’s okay to be Ivy here, with Rachel, her only

lover

friend. Rachel knows and doesn’t say.)

“Love,” Rachel whispers and kisses and strokes until she drifts away, drowning in oranges, and the memory of blood fades like smoke, burnt away, only ashes.

(She isn’t sure she wakes or lives and cannot bear to try the sun, but oranges fall away.)

V.

Ivy has a plan.

She will wait, and Rachel will see how much her friendship means, how nice it is to be cherished. After the rat-man, after Kisten

(who is almost Ivy himself, they are so entwined, and if they had babies, tiny, little living vampires, they would be

im

perfect)

she will be ready for Ivy. Rachel will save Ivy, her witch fire and essence, she will fill Ivy until there’s no more room, until her skin is bursting with it, with magic and witch, and she will burn her down, burn her

up

free of the vampire.

Then Ivy will sit at her piano and play the tune which calls witches from their beds

(the pied

witch

piper)

and Rachel will come to her at last

(at last)

and tilt her head, open her throat, and want.

(Ivy understands want and need and how it

devours

overwhelms from the inside out.)

Rachel says it’s sex, and she doesn’t want sex, but it’s not, and she’ll see, she’ll learn. It’s not sex, though it can be, if she would like. Ivy knows the truth of it, deep inside, where she’s molded into something not quite human

(inhuman)

something just a little different

(monster)

it’s not sex

Rachel will learn, while Ivy plays and calls her forth from her slumber. Not blood, either.

It’s love.


End file.
